Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte accused by former Yugoslav dictator of prejudicing the trial in the media. Denis Staunton, in The Hague reports
Mr Slobodan Milosevic has told the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague that it has no right to try him and that he was brought before it unlawfully.
Speaking on the second day of his trial, the former Yugoslav leader said the UN had no right to set up the tribunal.
"I challenge the legality of this court because it is not established on the basis of law," he argued.
He accused the tribunal's Chief Prosecutor, Ms Carla Del Ponte, of already proclaiming his guilt and his sentence in media interviews. But the presiding judge, Mr Richard May rejected Mr Milosevic's claims and said the court had already ruled on its own legality. "Your views on this court are entirely irrelevant," he said.
Mr Milosevic was due to begin his opening statement yesterday but he chose to wait until today, saying he did not want to be interrupted.
Earlier, the prosecution showed film footage of emaciated inmates in Bosnian prison camps where thousands of detainees were starved, beaten, sexually assaulted and tortured.
Mr Milosevic, who is charged with 66 war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, sat impassively while the prosecution outlined its case. Wearing a dark suit, white shirt and red, white and blue striped tie, the former dictator's first words in his trial were to denounce the tribunal as a "lynch process".
The former Yugoslav leader, who is a qualified lawyer, is conducting his own defence but can avail of advice from three independent lawyers described as amici curiae (friends of the court).
Mr Milosevic is expected to speak all day today and his legal advisers said yesterday that he will present a detailed legal challenge.
"He's going to provoke or to challenge very certain, strictly legal questions and after that he is going to speak about the historical background, and the political background," a Belgrade lawyer, Mr Dragoslav Ognjanovic, said yesterday.
Mr Milosevic may seek to call high-ranking Western officials to testify, including the former US President, Mr Bill Clinton, and Britain's Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair.
He will argue that he is not a war criminal but a leader who sought unity and peace in his country.
During the trial, which is expected to last more than two years, prosecutors will call up to 350 witnesses.
Opening the prosecution case, the deputy prosecutor, Mr Geoffrey Nice, described Mr Milosevic as a criminal with the single aim of segregating the Serbs from their Yugoslav neighbors to maximize his control over the Balkan region.
Mr Milosevic is the first head of state to be brought to trial before an international tribunal. His case is the most prominent in international law since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after the second World War.
Among the charges he faces are genocide and breaches of the rules of war. If he is convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
AFP reports from Ljubljana: Yugoslavia's "worst nightmare" would be for the former leader to walk free from the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, since this could seriously threaten the country's moderate new rulers, a Slovene newspaper warned yesterday.
"Yugoslavia wants to see Milosevic convicted," the newspaper Dnevnik said in an editorial: "Its worst nightmare would be if Slobo left The Hague a free man.
"If that happened in the coming year while his supporters are still active, not even (The Hague prosecutor) Carla Del Ponte would be able to save the present democratic administration," Dnevnik commented on the trial.
Slovenia was among the first of the former constituent Yugoslav republics to leave the Yugoslav Federation, declaring its independence in 1991 on the same day as Croatia.
The biggest Slovene daily newspaper, Delo, spoke critically of what it called "selective" international justice in The Hague.
"The dark side of the affair is that many war crimes, perhaps even genocide, have happened in recent years, but obviously no- one is going to answer for them," it commented.
The newspaper cited as examples the policies of the former Russian president, Mr Boris Yeltsin and his successor, President Vladimir Putin, against rebels in Chechnya, the former US president, Mr Bill Clinton, for the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia when Milosevic was in power, and President George W Bush for ordering the bombing of innocent civilians during his war against terrorism.